Schoolgirl Jen at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  “It was returned to us, with other possessions of Katharine’s, after her death. I do not think Andrew or Kenneth would value it. I am sure you will. It is in its right place here, where the drawings were made.”

  Jen’s eyes were blazing. “We’ll keep it in the Abbey, with the other treasures. I won’t take it away; I shall give it to Joan. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  “That would be best,” he assented. “Now get well quickly! I don’t like to think of you lying in bed. I prefer to see you turning head over heels in moments of excitement.”

  Jen blushed. “I’m afraid I did do just that, didn’t I? I’m awful sometimes, I know. I’d have liked to do it to-day, because of this lovely book, but it would hurt quite a lot. I shall look at the pictures while I have to stay in bed. Sir Keith!” she called, as he reached the door.

  “What now, little Miss Jen?”

  “I haven’t said thank you,” Jen said breathlessly. “But I do thank you, a thousand million times, and Joan and Joy will thank you too.”

  “I am glad you are pleased. I thought the drawings would appeal to you.”

  “Pleased! I’m jumping about with happiness—inside me, you know. And the pictures will be the greatest possible comfort to me while I have to lie in bed,” she added.

  “Good! That will make me very happy. Good-bye for the present, little Miss Jen.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  ST. FRANCIS IN THE ABBEY

  “Joan! Come and look!” Jen said very quietly, almost reverently, as Joan came into the room, after seeing Sir Keith to his car. She spoke so gently that Joan knew something had moved her greatly; Jen the excitable was quietest when her feelings were most deeply touched.

  “What is it, Jenny-Wren? Sir Keith said you had something to show me.”

  “Ambrose!” Jen gave a subdued whoop of joy. “Let me inform you, Miss Shirley, that Brother Ambrose loved birds and fed them and called them his ‘Small Ones’. And that he had a little striped—I mean strippit!—cat, and he used to preach to her, sitting under a small tree beside the gate-house. Oh, Joan! Could it be our huge tree that knocked me down, do you think?”

  “What are you talking about, Jen, dear?” Joan asked anxiously. “Has Sir Keith’s visit been too much for you? You look all flushed and hot. We told you not to get excited!”

  Jen gave a trill of happy laughter. “Anybody would be excited! Look, Joan! Ambrose and his little cat!”

  Joan sat on the bed and gazed at the drawing.

  “Oh, Jen, dear, what is it? Who did it? It certainly looks like Ambrose!”

  Jen explained in breathless haste: “Drawings by Katharine, who married Peregrine. For her baby girl, before little Kat was born. Look, she says so! Sir Keith found them, and he’s given them to us. He said they were for me, but that would be silly. I’m not going to take precious family documents to Yorkshire! I shall give them to you.”

  Joan was looking through the book, her eyes filled with wondering reverence. “What a treasure! Drawings from Tudor or Stuart days! Oh, look, Jen! Have you seen this one? Ambrose sitting under the tree and calling the little cat, and she’s running to him, with her tail straight up! Ours have run to me like that dozens of times. Katharine could draw cats!”

  “She wasn’t much good at faces. I love that one!” Jen gloated over the sketch. “Is it our tree, Joan? It would be marvellous to know it had really been Ambrose’s tree!”

  “It’s in the right position, for that’s certainly a bit of the gate-house. I’m sure it’s our tree,” Joan agreed. “What a pity it had to come down!”

  “But you sat under it; Vinny said so. You were just like Ambrose, sitting under the tree!”

  Joan laughed. “It was a very small tree in his day. We must show Jandy, and we must tell Joy. She’ll be thrilled to have a gift from her ancestress. Jandy Mac! Come and look at Sir Keith’s discovery!”

  “Sir Keith seems to have thrilled Jen quite a lot,” Jandy said severely, coming to sit on the bed also. “We ought to put ice on her head and darken the room, and go away and leave her to be quiet, taking the discovery that has been so exciting and enjoying it downstairs by ourselves. What is it, anyway?”

  “Don’t you try!” Jen retorted. “It’s still mine; I haven’t given it to Joan yet. I’m going to gloat over it till you let me get up.”

  “What an angel kitten!” said Janice. “But what a funny old man! The cat’s good, but he’s a very poor attempt. Who is the artist?”

  Jen and Joan explained together, a breathless jumble of Joy’s ancestress, the fifteen-year-old bride of Peregrine, who had been Ambrose’s adopted son in his last days—of Baby Kat, before she was born—of Ambrose and his birds and little striped cat—of the big tree that had just come down.

  “Gosh, that’s interesting!” Janice exclaimed. “It really is a treasure! Let me look at it properly!”

  “I haven’t been through it yet.” Jen, feeling suddenly tired, surrendered the drawings. “See what you can find, Jandy Mac. Joan found a lovely picture of the ‘strippit’ cat.”

  Janice turned over the pages, eager for a discovery on her own account. “I’m glad to have seen this for myself. I’d never have understood, if I’d only heard of it in letters. The lady couldn’t draw faces; she always pulls Ambrose’s hood over his head—clever of her! But she’s good at creatures—dogs and horses and birds. Here’s Ambrose talking to a squirrel.” And she held the page for the others to see. “It’s sitting up, holding something in its hands and nibbling; lovely bushy tail! It isn’t interested in the sermon, but it’s not a scrap afraid of the old chap.”

  “That’s a happy thought,” Joan said. “We’ve always felt he was a dear, gentle old soul. It’s nice to know the wild things loved him.”

  “What’s that funny word written under the squirrel?” Jen peered at the ancient writing.

  “‘L’Ecureuil’. It’s plain enough.”

  “But what does it mean? Was it the squirrel’s name?”

  “It certainly was,” Joan laughed. “‘Ecureuil’ is the French for squirrel. Ambrose was half French, you know.”

  “I never heard squirrel in French before. I wonder if Ambrose called him ‘l’ecureuil’?”

  “Very likely. And I expect his name for the birds, the Small Ones, was really Les Petits.”

  “I like that!” Jen exclaimed. She turned a page and gave a squeal of delight. “Oh, Joan, look! Here’s the cat sitting on a bit of broken wall, with her feet tucked under her so that you can’t see she has any—what Joy calls ‘her hands in her muff’. She has beautiful dark rings round her neck, like chains of beads—absolutely regular. Look, Jandy Mac! Her eyes are half-shut, and Ambrose, still with no face but with a long beard again, is tickling her behind her ears; she’s loving it. I do like that one!”

  “Perhaps the cat was ‘he’. Why should a monk have a lady friend?” Janice teased.

  “I’m quite sure she’s a little girl. Look at the tiny dainty legs and feet in that other picture!”

  “She has a lovely tail, almost like the squirrel’s. Find something else, Jandy Mac,” Joan said, keeping a careful eye on Jen, however.

  Janice took the book and began to look through it. “I say! These are different—these end pages. I don’t believe the lady did them. Look, Joan! Very careful drawings of bits of architecture; lovely close work, quite different from Mistress Katharine’s cats and creatures. Isn’t this the rose window?”

  “In the sacristy?” Joan exclaimed. “Of course it is! Who did these? They’re not Katharine’s style at all.”

  “There’s a squiggle in the corner of each of them!” Jen gave a crow of delight. “I believe it’s a signature, a sort of monogram—two or three letters all mixed up.”

  “You’re right,” Janice said. “Each of these drawings of places has your squiggle in the corner; and, what’s more, they’re all details of small bits of buildings. Could they be studies for the paintings of the church, Joan?”

  Joan
was examining the drawings carefully. “They’re bits of the Abbey,” she announced. “This is the odd little piece of stone carving under the refectory; I’d know it anywhere. This is the lavatory arch, on the outside of the refectory.”

  “Of course it is!” Jen shouted. “Who did them, Joan? Who put those squiggles in the corners? It wasn’t Katharine; she drew cats and squirrels. And none of her things have squiggles.”

  “Katharine’s pictures were done for her children,” Joan reminded her. “They wouldn’t care about bits of an old building, but they’d love her birds and creatures. Someone else drew these studies in her book.”

  “She lent it!” Jen gave a characteristic cry of delight. “She lent it to that man who came to do the paintings of the church! These are his sketches, before he started on the big pictures! And he did little bits of the Abbey, when it was in ruins, in case Henry came back and bashed the rest all to pieces! Oh, Joan, don’t you think it’s true?”

  “I do,” Joan said, her face lighting up. “I believe some of these are the famous artist’s studies and sketches, jotted down in the end part of Katharine’s drawing-book. It was she who brought him here to paint the church, from Ambrose’s descriptions. I expect they were friends, and she lent him her book.”

  “I don’t suppose books for drawing were too plentiful in those days,” Janice added. “It sounds very likely. But we can prove it, you know.”

  “Prove it? How?” Joan and Jen looked at her quickly.

  “If he took the trouble to sign his sketches, with what Jen so beautifully calls ‘squiggles’, wouldn’t he sign the paintings too?”

  “Of course he would! Come and look!” Joan started up.

  “I can’t come,” Jen wailed. “Go and find out quickly, Joan and Jandy!”

  “You sprint off to the Abbey and find out, Jandy Mac.” Joan controlled her excitement and sat down on the bed again. “See if there are monograms on the pictures of the great church! You know where I keep the Abbey keys. No, I’m not coming; it doesn’t need two of us to look for squiggles! I’ll see them next time I’m in the refectory. Do, please, go quickly, Jandy! We’re aching to know!”

  With a swift look at her, Janice raced away.

  “You stayed because of me,” Jen cried. “Oh, Joan, why did you? I’m not a baby! I could wait!”

  “So can I wait,” Joan assured her. “I’m not in a hurry to see the signatures, but I do want to know if they are there. Jandy will tell us. I never noticed whether the paintings were signed or not; it’s such a very small squiggle that it’s quite easy to miss it. But now that you’ve discovered it, Jandy will see it if it’s there. Once she has eased our minds, we’re going to leave you to rest. You’re very tired. If the doctor comes he’ll scold me. You will rest and be quiet, won’t you, Jenny-Wren?”

  “I’ll try,” Jen promised. “I am tired, but it’s been so thrilling, Joan!”

  “Too thrilling for to-day, but I don’t see how we could have refused to let Sir Keith come. We won’t look at the book any more just now; it’s much too exciting! It will keep. We’ll enjoy it later on.”

  “May I hold it, if I definitely don’t open it or look at it at all?” Jen pleaded.

  “If you promise faithfully that you won’t look inside, I’ll leave it with you,” Joan agreed. “You don’t want to feel Jandy and I are discovering things in it that you haven’t seen, do you?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just want to feel it’s there and to think about it. But if you’d like to take it——” Jen began.

  “That’s generous, but we won’t do it. It’s yours, and you must make the discoveries, if there are any more. I expect we’ve seen most of it now. Well, Jandy Mac?”

  “A perfectly clear signature in the corner of each painting, but as impossible to read as Jen’s squiggles,” Janice reported. “They’re monograms, but I’ve no idea what the letters were.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The great thing is that we know we have the artist’s sketches for his pictures, in Katharine’s drawing-book.”

  “I don’t think Sir Keith knew. He only spoke about Katharine’s bit,” Jen said.

  “Then you must write and tell him. He may not have examined the book carefully right through. Now, Jandy, we’re going to leave Jenny-Wren to rest and dream about Ambrose and his little striped cat.”

  “‘Strippit cat’!” Jen said reproachfully.

  “And high time too. She’s had far too much excitement for an invalid,” Janice scolded.

  “I say, Joan!” Jen called, as Joan reached the door. “Don’t you think Ambrose was rather like St. Francis? It’s marvellous to have a St. Francis of our own in the Abbey! I don’t know if he really preached to the birds—I mean, Les Petits!—and the little cat and the squirrel, but I’m sure they liked him. Perhaps I’ll call one of my boys Francis.”

  “That’s better than Boniface, anyway,” Joan remarked.

  “What’s all this?” Janice asked. “Is Jen planning her family already?”

  “She’s going to have ten boys,” Joan said solemnly. “She threatened to call one Boniface, but I said it would be unkind.”

  “Brutal!” Janice agreed.

  “Not ten boys! I said ten children. Three of them had better be girls. I like boys best, but I must have some girls too.”

  “Dear me!” Janice said. “You’re going to be busy!”

  “That’s what I said,” Joan laughed. “Yes, perhaps Ambrose was like St. Francis—that’s another thing for you to think about! But go to sleep, Jenny-Wren, and don’t look at that book any more just now.”

  “All right, I’ve promised. But I shall go right through it this afternoon. I’m sure there are things in it we haven’t discovered yet,” Jen said drowsily.

  CHAPTER XV

  VINNY’S MYSTERIOUS BOOK

  Jen spent a happy and, it must be admitted, an exciting afternoon turning the pages of her book. Katharine Abinger’s chief concern had been to draw subjects that would interest her children while they were small, and many of the sketches were of animals and birds. But one or two were treasures, and Joan, coming in at tea-time, found Jen chuckling with delight.

  “Look, Joan! See what I’ve found! Ambrose, with his face all hidden by his hood, as usual, walking along pulling a string behind him, and the little cat running after it! Wasn’t it nice of him to play with her? There’s something written under it, but I can’t make it out.”

  “It was just like Ambrose to play with her, I’m sure.” Joan came to look. “I’ve quite a new picture of the dear old chap. Isn’t she pretty, with her dark stripes and her fine tail? But what’s this? ‘Ambrose and Minet.’ That’s what it looks like to me.”

  “I thought that too. What does it mean?”

  “Minet is the cat’s name,” Joan announced, after a moment’s thought. “We should spell it ‘Minette’; I expect it’s a French name for a cat. There, Jen! We know the name of the little strippit cat! She was Minette.”

  “Oh, marvellous!” Jen cried. “I’m glad you’ve guessed! And Minette had a baby. Look!” And she turned another page, to show Minette with a tiny dark object at her side. “Do you think Ambrose was pleased?”

  “They should be called Min and Minette,” Joan laughed. “That’s a real addition to Ambrose’s family!”

  “To our Abbey family,” Jen added. “I’m glad to know Minette had children. There’s an odd picture here, Joan. Look! It’s called ‘The New Rosary’. Ambrose, still with no face, is holding a chain of beads. What would a lay-brother do with beads? And what’s a rosary? If this was a new one, he must have had an old one!”

  “What a string of questions! Don’t you know what a rosary is? Oh, Jenny-Wren!”

  “Ought I to know? But why should I?”

  “You’re keen on the old monks. A rosary was a bead chain they used to help them in their prayers. Everybody had one—not only the monks.”

  “Oh!” Jen thought this over. “Oh, well! If it helped them, I suppose it was all
right. Did Peregrine give Ambrose a new one?”

  “It looks like it. I wonder what happened to his old one? It’s not the sort of thing anybody would lose.”

  “Perhaps it was worn out.”

  Joan shook her head. “I’d have liked to have Ambrose’s rosary. It wouldn’t wear out. I don’t know what could happen to it.”

  “Perhaps he left it lying about and somebody stole it.”

  “Nobody would—unless, maybe, the squirrel!” And Joan laughed. “Suppose Ambrose was praying, with the rosary, under the little tree, and someone called him away in a hurry—to see somebody in the village who was very ill, perhaps. He put down the beads, and the squirrel thought they were nuts—they may have been brown wood—and took them and buried them in some corner. You know how squirrels love to bury things!”

  Jen grinned. “He’d get a shock when he dug them up and tried to eat them in the winter! And Ambrose was terribly upset because he couldn’t find his beads, so Peregrine and Katharine gave him a new rosary.”

  “We can’t know, but it seems quite a possible story,” Joan said. “The squirrel would be the most likely thief. Nobody else would rob old Ambrose! See if you can find any more stories!”

  The book was a great comfort to Jen during the next day or two, while her bruised limbs made movement difficult and painful. She lay turning the pages and gloating over the drawings, and she wrote letters of warm thanks to Sir Keith and of excited description to Joy.

  “It’s keeping me from the awful thought of Vinny Miles presenting me with a book,” she said frankly to Joan and Janice. “I can’t worry over Vinny while I’m thinking about Ambrose and Minette.”

  “Is it such a dreadful idea?” Janice asked.

  “Frightful! I’m sure the book will be something utterly ghastly, and I won’t know what to say.”

  “It may not be so bad,” Joan said hopefully. “It may be an old Bible or prayer-book of her mother’s. If it’s old enough, it may be quite interesting.”

  “A hymn-book!” Jen wailed. “I know it will be a hymn-book, with ‘Dare to be a Daniel’ and ‘Pull for the Shore’ in it!”